Alfred H. Fuchs

Population stereotypy in code design

Abstract The present paper is concerned with the development of efficient signs or symbols for use in visual communication. In particular, it describes and illustrates a technique for generating such signs, and presents a series of experiments undertaken to evaluate this technique. Although the application of these methods was limited to a specialized set of concepts (military intelligence terms), and the test experiments for signs developed were highly selective, it was believed that the principles involved have implications for several rather divergent areas of psychology which share an interest in language and communication.

The course in the history of psychology: present status and future concerns.

The present study provides a turn-of-the-century status report on the teaching of the history of psychology in colleges and universities in the United States. The data indicate that the course is offered regularly in most departments of psychology and is frequently required of majors; these findings are consistent with earlier research. Most instructors teach the course largely out of personal interest and self-taught expertise with their primary teaching and research commitments to other areas of psychology. Few instructors engage in publication of research and scholarship in the history of psychology, although there are 2 journals in the field that provide an outlet for scholarship. The few positions that allow for primary commitment to teaching and research in the history of psychology is a possible cause of concern for the future of the course and for its place in the education of psychologists in the 21st century.

Contributions of American mental philosophers to psychology in the United States.

Professors of mental philosophy who taught and wrote textbooks in colleges and universities in the United States before the Civil War contributed significantly to the development of the new psychology that replaced mental philosophy in the last quarter of the 19th century. Their contributions have been neglected in textbooks on the history of psychology, even those devoted to the history of psychology in the United States. These mental philosophers eased the transition to, and influenced the nature of, the new psychology in the United States by establishing a place in the curriculum for mental philosophy that the new psychology came to occupy; by identifying the topics for laboratory methods to address; by pursuing an empirical, inductive, scientific approach to the study of the mind; and by their tradition of functional analysis that came to characterize psychology in the United States.

Psychology as a Science

What is scientific psychology? Most people know that psychologists study mental functioning, but comparatively few appreciate the scope of modern psychology or know what psychologists actually do. There is good public awareness of the roles of psychologists in clinical and mental health settings, also in schools and the workplace, but much less knowledge of psychologists as laboratory scientists. This report aims to give a brief account of psychology as an academic discipline, to differentiate science and practice in psychology, and to illustrate how fundamental and applied problems are interdependent. Finally, the report outlines the needs of psychology as a scientific discipline, if it is to continue to flourish in Canada and to address major problems presently facing Canadian society.

Response latency and serial position in short-term memory*

A serial position effect was observed in latency scores when a visually presented test element was correctly identified as having a particular serial location in a memorized serial list. The effect was not observed in a choice reaction-time task which made similar response requirements. The data suggest that the serial position effect for latency scores, as for error scores, arise in memory tasks in which the identification of a position in a list is critical for correct responding.